


Knit a Blindfold

by papayaromantic



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Fluff, Gen, Sibling Bonding, all i wanna do is write sibling interactions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papayaromantic/pseuds/papayaromantic
Summary: Five might be going soft, but really, all Klaus is asking for is the ability to knit in the new timeline. He's not an asshole. Maybe the ghosts will like it, anyways, and Klaus can stop bugging him for some mystery cure that'll make the corpses stop screaming for a minute.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 27
Kudos: 396





	Knit a Blindfold

“Let’s just say,” starts Klaus one afternoon, nursing a gallon of milk in between his arms at the breakfast table while father dearest is out on business, “I have a friend.”

“Ben.”

“No—,”

“Yourself.”

Klaus waves his _‘HELLO’_ hand at Five, more out of muscle memory than actually having the tattoo there. “To assume is to make an ass of you and me, and we all know you’re as flat as a board.” He checks the expiration date. “I have plenty of friends.”

“No you don’t.” corrects Ben, rudely pushing his way into a conversation he was not invited to.

“That’s rude of you,” Klaus sniffs.

Five gets up to leave. Hurriedly, the lanky recently-(re)turned-teen captures him from behind.

“Let go of me, asshole!”

“Listen to me!” whines Klaus, putting all of his weight onto Five’s back. Catching a flash of blue from the corner of his eye, he quickly grabs Five’s face in his hands. “If you go gentle into that good light, I’ll give you a wet willy so sopping that SeaWorld is gonna make you pay royalties!” He brings his mouth closer to Five’s ear and sticks his tongue out. “No fingerth involved~.”

“That’s SO gross, Klaus.”

“I’m not watching you do that again.” Ben adds, turning back to his book. Five puts his arms back down.

“My good man!” Klaus claps Five on the back and sits down to take another swig of milk. “So, I have a friend.”

“We’ve established this.”

Klaus puffs out his cheeks. “Patience is a virtue, _mon frere!_ Anyway, my friend has… an issue or two.” He politely ignores Ben’s snickering, because Ben is a sniveling little bitch who doesn’t currently deserve his attention. “And in order to get rid of these problems, they might have to make a few changes.”

“We already agreed that you’re going sober this go around, Klaus; stop wasting my time.”

“It’s not about that!” he huffs. “So what my friend was wondering was, well…”

“How much Klaus is allowed to change the timeline.”

“Yes, thank you, Ben! That is exactly the issue my _friend_ is having.”

Five tents his fingers and pushes his forehead into the table. “Klaus…”

“Run your Negative Nancy filter before you speak, please; my fragile ego can’t take any more berating with Ben over here doing the job for you.”

“We can’t just… change the timeline, Klaus! You know this! We’ll be caught, fair and simple, and then far worse than Hazel and Cha-Cha are going to pick us off one by one. It’ll be like a horror flick in here.”

Klaus glances at the woman with the twisted arm and the tongue that had been ripped so far out of her mouth that he’s almost certain he could see her stomach attached to the end of it. He shares what he considers a commiserating glance with her, but it’s probably more likely that she’s debating how best to murder him and then use his blood to write a message to some past lover. “So I’m guessing no dice. How much could I—my friend!—change so that that doesn’t happen?”

“Nothing! We’re doing everything we could possibly be doing right now, Klaus; we can’t introduce any more unknown variables.”

Klaus pouts, pinching his fingers in front of his face for Five’s reference of size. “Not even a little baby one?”

“If you even kill a fly you hadn’t swatted the first time around, I hope its ghost haunts your nightmares for the rest of our very short lives.”

“Oh, I’m quaking in my shorts, brother!”

Ben looks thoughtfully up at them for a minute. “Could he pick up knitting?”

Five looks so utterly confounded that he turns around to stare at Ben. “Knitting?”

“Yeah, you know, loop the yarn with the needles and eat hard caramels next to all of your cats.”

“Hi, Klaus here, and Klaus explicitly does not remember asking Ben about that.”

“C’mon, man, you know you don’t mind knitting.” He nudges Klaus’ thigh on the table with his hand, clearing space to pour a glass of the milk like a civilized human being. Klaus hands it over with a groan. “It’s not really much of a change to pick up a new hobby. And, you know, if the ghosts like it then it’s better, right? Nobody hates seeing a skillfully knitted blanket.” He takes a pointed sip, looking at his brother with his eyebrows raised. “An experiment like that wouldn’t hurt.”

Klaus takes the carton back and gestures with it towards Ben, thinking about his idea. “I mean, they could _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ my ass, you never really know with them.” He pauses. “Dude, do you think I could knit Bonnie Tyler’s dress? I think I could. Allison would look great in it.”

“It’s sheer, Klaus, not wool. You can’t do that with needles.”

“Crochet?”

“Still needles, dumbass.”

Five makes a face, finally catching up with the conversation. “You wanna be… what? Friends with the ghosts?” Klaus faces the wall and bites his lip. Five sighs. “Klaus, no. No, no, no, we can’t have major changes like you being able to command the dead. That’s just how it has to be if we don’t want the world to come crashing down.”

Klaus nods solemnly and gets up to stash the milk back in the fridge. “Yeah, I… yeah. Miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, right?” He bares a defeated grin towards Five, who slouches. “It’s cool. It’s cool. I’m rather good at ignoring them if I do say so myself! Doubt knitting would have helped anyway. You know, I don’t think we ever consider the fact that we just let Ben’s brain come to whatever conclusions it wants to, no concrete facts required. Been in isolation too long—too few people to tell him he’s going wild.” He turns to Ben. “Ben, you’re off the chain. Real rowdyman over here.”

“Sure, Klaus.” Ben’s smile is a bit too tight, a bit too forgiving.

“Welp, I’m off to go do whatever it is that preteens do these days. Nice seeing you out of your room, Hawaii Five-0!” Klaus pats him on the back and heads out of the room, Ben standing up to wash his glass and follow after him.

Five stays in the kitchen, mentally tallying the equations in his head all over again. _We can’t afford it,_ he repeats to himself, _he can’t afford that._

When he heads back upstairs to ask Vanya about her powers, he hears muffled talking from Ben’s room, a bit too fast and panicked to be something he can ignore. He blinks next to the door frame, peeking into the scene silently.

“I don’t think I can go through it again, Ben!” Klaus shovels a hand through his wild hair and peers between his fingers at Six.

Ben pulls his hand back down to his side. “You can, Klaus. You’re used to it now so he’s been putting you through ‘training’ less, right? It’s getting better. You’re getting better. It’s okay.”

“It’s not!” A hysterical laugh bursts from somewhere deep in his diaphragm. “If I hear my name screamed one more time I think I might go back to ‘Four.’”

“You don’t want that, you know you don’t.”

“You’re not dead anymore, Ben! You don’t see them! I’m sober now and so they suck major dick, which is the exact opposite of the way this usually works!”

Ben pleads with the sort of tone that implies an argument long-since repeated, “Then _tell me._ Klaus, please just talk to me about this.”

Klaus shakes his head violently and Ben deflates. “No, nah, you had your time in the realm of the ghosties.” He stares into his brother’s face imploringly. “I know you hated it. You can hide it all you want, but I know it fucked you up. You couldn’t sleep to ignore them, you couldn’t get high. Not like me.”

“They didn’t chase after me and scream at me and try to touch me and tell me to kill myself.” Klaus flinches. “So no, not like you.”

His shoulders hitch and he looks back down at the bed between his feet. “You know, you missed out when you didn’t check on Diego with me yesterday. You remember his lady friend, right? The one at the motel?” Ben sighs, accepting that he’s going to be a brick wall for the rest of the night.

“Detective Patch.”

“That’s the bitch!” He snaps his fingers in recognition.

“Be nice to her, Klaus—she rescued you.” Ben struggles to keep a laugh down.

They continue their conversation after that, not that Five would know. He’s popped up somewhere else.

Klaus wakes up in the morning (it’s 1 A.M., thank the little girl in the sky that he slept that long) with his hands pressed flat over his ears and the dead crooning their usual sob stories at him. He gets up and steps through a few corpses on his way to the desk, hoping that his eyeliner pencil will be there. He can’t see it through the mass of blue bodies, but he’s hoping against hope that he left it there this morning (last morning! He slept through midnight, he did it, Ben is going to be so proud).

He sits at his chair, fumbling through his trinkets. The pencil is, thankfully, still there, so he picks it up with shaking hands and moves it towards his face. His eyes catch something in the mirror, though, and he stills.

A ball of red yarn and a set of knitting needles sit atop his desk by his left elbow, a note laying forlorn beside it.

Klaus chokes back a teary laugh as he reads the scribbled “fucking whatever —5” left on the paper. He feels the yarn between his hands, watches as the scraggly threads catch on his fingers’ calluses. “Couldn’t bother himself to splurge for the nice stuff, huh guys?” he whispers to the ghosts in his room.

They wail in reply.

He grins, turns on the closest lamp, and picks up the needles.

The first thing he knits is a scarf for a little boy he’s named Johan.

Johan is the nicest ghost in the room; young and only missing one hand. He wails for his mother, like most ghost children do, and won’t respond to anything Klaus does other than to scream louder. He’s the optimal customer, really, because he has no opinions on what type of stitch he wants, what color he would prefer, or what length would best fit around his bruised little neck. It’s for the best as Klaus only knows one stitch, owns red yarn, and is gonna use the whole damned thing.

“You know, this is my first time.” He winks at the ghost, needles clacking together absentmindedly. “You oughta feel real important, ‘Hannie.”

Johan screeches.

“It’s okay, bud, we can’t all have perfect self-esteem! You’re worth this scarf, baby boy. We’ll talk about your issues later.” He nods and turns back to his work, humming to himself. Johan swipes through his chest and he tuts, setting the needles aside to stare at him. “Not yet! Work on your patience; you’re almost worse than Five. And that’s saying something. That guy? Man, smart choice staying in here.” He glances down at his hands. “That being said, maybe you could go bother him for a little bit?”

He stays.

“Just, like, a minute?”

Johan’s arm swipes through him again as he heaves out a wail.

“Fair enough.” Klaus goes back to knitting with his headphones on.

Other than that night, he works on the scarf in his bed, where most ghosts don’t go. Johan watches with the rest of them, clawing at the flesh around his own severed wrist. He sobs as the medium pulls the yarn taut, and whimpers when he clicks the needles together. Klaus attempts to make conversation with him, but his patterns don’t change. He wasn’t expecting them to, but it sure would’a been a nice surprise.

With their small amount of free time, it’s hard to find a moment to work alone. He could knit under the table during dinner, but he doesn’t want Ben to know that Five let him do this if it just isn’t going to work. Hope is a deadly thing and he knows Ben would fall for it. Klaus won’t; he’s too used to the feeling of fruitlessly pushing his powers away.

They have spaghetti that night, which is Luther’s favorite. Luther did a good job in training today, Mom had said while he helped her with the meal, so he deserved a special treat. Luther doesn’t acknowledge it in front of Reginald, but his shoulders do relax ever so slightly.

Johan trods beside him, still bawling. Klaus sighs and picks up his fork, spaghetti in tow. The ghost sniffles, watching the noodles. When he catches Klaus’ eye, he gestures from the fork to his neck, coughing up tears and still screaming for his mom, but now looking slightly confused. Klaus’ grip slackens and the fork clatters back into the bowl. He’s sure he hears an angered calling of his number from somewhere out in the realm of the living, but he’s too busy choking on his words. If he weren’t at the dinner table right now, he bets he would be crying. 

“Yeah, yeah, this one’s not yarn, buddy.” He manages to say, hardly any louder than his own breath. _This ghost isn’t a monster. He remembers. He thinks. He wants. He’s fucking human. He’s fucking human and maybe this one doesn’t want to tear his throat out and maybe not all of them want to kill him and maybe some of them are safe._

Hargreeves doesn’t let him take a single bite of his food that night and instead sends him to bed starving, but he doesn’t care. He weaves the needles together until the friction rubs the skin off of his hands and he bleeds into Johan’s long-ass scarf, for once not putting his headphones in and instead hopefully listening to the crying of ghosts, waiting to hear Johan say anything that resembles a human conversation starter.

For the first time, he’s glad that his father locked him in. He doesn’t want to face Ben’s questions tonight—he’s too busy.

He’s locked in his room for two days, but he doesn’t really notice. At least it’s not the mausoleum.

On the second day, a little past midnight, he finishes Johan’s scarf. It’s messy and the number of rows varies from stitch to stitch, but it’s his and he made it and it might save him. He grabs a Sharpie marker from his school pencil case and scribbles the name the kid has been wailing on it because he doesn’t feel like learning how to embroider tonight. He can’t do anything about bringing Johan’s mom back, but this type of closure has got to be enough.

“This is for you, kiddo.” Klaus holds the scarf out between his hands and gestures it towards Johan, hands steadier than usual. The stitches flash blue between his fingers as he turns the boy corporeal—an olive branch. “It’s like, stupidly obvious how much you want this pretty lil’ thing.”

Johan approaches the bed carefully, feeling the carpet under his bloodied toes. He’s still sniffling, but the godawful wailing stopped.

His fingers touch the yarn and leave it stained. The boy seems to be readjusting to the sense of touch; scrunching muscles into themselves and clenching creases into the scarf. His shoulder twitches and Klaus bets that if he still had the other hand, it would be scratching at the fabric, too. The ghost gets his finger caught in one of the dropped stitches (he’s still getting better, screw you) and he yanks away with vigor. Every muscle seems to tense, both from him and from Klaus. The boy looks the medium in the eyes and begins to screech again.

“No, no, no, it’s okay, it’s just an accidental loop, no problemo!” Klaus’s heart is pounding. Ghosts are so fucking unpredictable. “I’ll just toss it on the floor, you can have it there—,”

He’s barely made the move to throw the scarf when he looks down and his arm is dripping blood. The boy’s nails are dug into his flesh; biting deep scratches down his forearm. His ears pound with Johan’s screaming at the same moment his wrist begins to burn with pain. He drops the scarf and slams his powers back into himself, watching passively as Johan falls forward through him.

Klaus scrambles off the bed and into the bathroom. He locks the door and presses himself into the sink counter behind him, breathing heavily. His skin feels like it’s on fire. He turns the tap on, just so Mom won’t have to clean blood stains out of the acrylic. 

He tries to summon Ben, but Ben is still alive.

He sleeps in the tub, that night. Johan doesn’t join him.

Klaus stops hoping.

The next morning he hears the tell-tale _click_ of the lock as Mom calls to him that breakfast starts in thirty minutes. She closes the door softly and Klaus struggles out of the basin, feet slipping on the dried blood. He pokes at the skin around the gouge in his forearm, but it doesn’t look too bad. Could have probably used a few stitches last night, but it’s healed openly for long enough now that he knows he’s just stuck with the scars. He wraps a bandage from the sink cupboard around it before nervously heading back into his room.

He doesn’t want to look, but he does. The scarf is laying there, bright red and forgotten on the hardwood. It’s laying in one of the stickier, darker smears of Klaus’ blood and he mourns the cleanliness of his handiwork. He supposes that the small bloodstains are what keep him from noticing for so long, at least until he bends down to pick it up.

Something’s different about the scarf than when he left it last night. It’s dirtier, sure, and has a big hole in it from Johan’s accidental tugging, but he also notices that there’s no writing anywhere on it. He turns it over and over and over in his hands, searching for any stray black mark or some sort of clue that the “Candace” he wrote is still there. No matter how closely he presses it to his face, there isn’t even a hint of the woman’s name.

His arms drop by his sides, scarf still strung and hanging between them. He grows frantic as he searches for a familiar face through the crowd in his bedroom. No matter how many ghosts he pushes his skinny form between, he does not see Johan. He calls his name. No response. He calls Candace’s name. No res—well, there’s a response from a ghost named Candace, but she doesn’t look like Johan, so Klaus doesn’t care.

He stares down at the scarf. _Johan is gone. He got a ghost to go away. It took days, but he…_

Klaus laughs and feels lighter than he ever did when he was high. His huge smile stretches his cheeks into uncomfortable positions but he keeps it up anyway, running his hands along Johan’s scarf.

Before anyone can call him down to breakfast a second time so he can face Dad’s wrath at his lateness, Klaus strings the long fabric between his dresser and his desk and takes a moment to really look at it. Look at his one and only success. It’s ugly and it’s bloody and he may have cried a bit on it, but he’s so, so fucking happy.

He races down the stairs and pulls Ben into a tight hug in the hallway when he sees him.

“Klaus, what…?” He pulls away slightly and his eyes widen. “Shit, what happened to your arm? Did the… when you were locked up, did the ghosts…?”

He nods, beaming. “Yeah,” his voice is thick, “Yeah, he did, he’s gone, I got him to go _away.”_

Ben blinks. “You got a ghost to go away?”

“His name was Johan. Or, well, maybe not, but I called him that.”

It takes a moment, but then Ben is hugging him back, his face in the crook of Klaus’ neck. “Oh my god, Klaus, that’s incredible! I know this is so big for you! God, do you think you can do it again?” He pulls Klaus in tighter before letting him go again to look at his face, searching for any lies. “How _did_ you do it?”

“Okay, you can’t say ‘I told you so,’ but I knit a scarf for him. I wrote the name of his mom on it and when I got up the next day, he and the writing were gone.”

Ben makes a face, but clearly believes him. “I didn’t honestly think that would work.”

“Neither did I!” Klaus laughs, breathless. “This is probably just one way of doing it. Maybe providing closure is the key? Or ‘love’ and all that other Care-Bear bullshit? I don’t know. I don’t care. He’s _gone.”_

“He’s gone.” Ben adds, expression soft and gleeful.

Ben takes his hand and leads him to the dining room, stealthily trying to ask Klaus to let him look at the damage Johan’s ghost did to him. Klaus forgoes reading between the very obvious lines, instead choosing to bounce along the hallway and make plans for the rest of the knittings he’s going to make for the ghosts in his bedroom. Ben stills in his walk, glancing at Klaus.

“Klaus, I’m really happy for you, but didn’t Five, like, forbid you from knitting? I would have told you to screw his ruling if I knew this would help you like it is, but he still knows a lot more about the timeline than we do.”

The medium shrugs. “Five gave me the supplies.”

It’s quiet for a moment before Ben lets go of his hand and starts stomping away. Klaus chases after him, tugging at Ben’s sweater. “Woah, woah, why are we going Terminator here? Five did me a solid, you shouldn’t be mad at him, just come back and we’ll talk about—,”

Ben tugs away from Klaus. “I’m gonna go fucking hug that kid beyond an inch of his life, dude.”

Klaus cackles and catches up to Ben instead, turning to look him in the eye. “Race to see who can hug him before he blinks away?”

“Dastardly! It’s obviously a deal.”

The dronings of whatever asshole philosopher Hargreeves decided to put on the record player are drowned out amidst the screaming of the ghosts around Klaus as he eats, but there is no Johan. His crying never even made a dent in the cacophony of everyone else, but today, his absence feels like complete silence to Klaus.

**Author's Note:**

> wow!!!! it has been, like, a super long time since i've written, but this has been in my drafts since june, so i figured i'd finish it! i have other stuff in my drafts, but this one seemed easier to finish than the others. anyways, hope you all are having a great year!!!


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